Beaver in the Buttercups🦫

Photo: Charlie Marshall · CC BY 2.0

SpeciesRodentiaCastoridae
Mammals

🦫Eurasian beaver

Castor fiber Linnaeus, 1758

The Eurasian beaver or European beaver is a species of beaver widespread across Eurasia, with a rapidly increasing population of at least 1.5 million in 2020. The Eurasian beaver was hunted to near-extinction for both its fur and castoreum, with only about 1,200 beavers in eight relict populations from France to Mongolia in the early 20th century. It has since been reintroduced into much of its former range and now lives from Western, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Russia through China and Mongolia, with about half the population in Russia. It is listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List.

Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Photos
4
Measurements
11
vs you
≈ a third of your weight
Also called
Castor fiber
Conservation status
LCLeast concern

IUCN Red List assessment, 2021.

Population trendIncreasing
Key measurements
Body mass
19 kg
Body length
0.77 m
Shoulder height
not recorded
Top speed
not recorded
Bite force
not recorded
Maximum lifespan
35 years
All measurements ↓
Facts and figures

Everything we know about the Eurasian beaver

Typical adult figures. Where a value is an estimate rather than a measurement, it says so.

Body mass
19 kg
COMBINE
Other figures ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Figures vary

  • 25 kgAnAgeAnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR)data quality: low
Body length
0.77 mestimated
COMBINE
Details ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Brain mass
45 g
COMBINE
Details ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Maximum lifespan
35 years
COMBINE
Details ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Generation length
9.02 years
COMBINE
Details ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Age at maturity
2.8 years
COMBINE
Details ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Gestation
107 days
COMBINE
Other figures ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Figures vary

  • 105 daysAnAgeAnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR)data quality: low
Litter size
about 3
COMBINE
Other figures ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Figures vary

  • 3AnAgeAnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR)data quality: low
Trophic level
Herbivore
COMBINE
Details ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Activity cycle
Crepuscular / mixed
COMBINE
Details ↓

Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Volume l
19 Laverage
Details ↓

Body mass at ~1.0 kg/L, the density of vertebrate tissue.

estimated = a model's estimate for a species nobody has measured; average = a mean across sexes or species in a group.

Not recorded for Eurasian beaver yet: shoulder height, top speed, bite force.

Where it sits

Family tree

  1. kingdomAnimalia
  2. ›phylumChordata
  3. ›classMammalia
  4. ›orderRodentia
  5. ›familyCastoridae
  6. ›genusCastor
  7. ›speciesCastor fiber
Full lineage
  1. classMammals · Mammalia
  2. orderRodents · Rodentia
  3. familyCastoridae
  4. genusCastor
All 14 branches ↓
  1. kingdomMetazoa
  2. phylumChordata
  3. subphylumCraniata
  4. subphylumVertebrata
  5. superclassGnathostomata
  6. superclassSarcopterygii
  7. superclassTetrapoda
  8. classMammals · Mammalia
  9. subclassTheria
  10. superorderEuarchontoglires
  11. orderRodents · Rodentia
  12. suborderCastorimorpha
  13. familyCastoridae
  14. genusCastor
More

More about the Eurasian beaver

Closest relative on this site
🦫 Canadian beaver — last shared an ancestor ≈ 4.0 million years ago.
What it eats
leaves, roots and other plants100%
In other languages
Europäischer Biber (de), bóbr europejski (pl), 유럽비버 (ko), Castor d'Europe (fr), Castor fiber (es), eurázsiai hód (hu) … and 26 more languages
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